


Letters from Exile

by aphilologicalbatman (inabathrobe)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 12:05:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15142715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/pseuds/aphilologicalbatman
Summary: Flash fic written for prompts on Tumblr.





	1. Seriker, rated T, first meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Archival version of short prompt fills posted to Tumblr during summer 2017. First chapter originally posted [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161335350333/um-um-ok-this-is-probably-lame-as-all-get-out) for the prompt "when we first met."

Iker doesn’t remember the first time they met anymore. Sergio knows because he asked him about it somewhere around 2010 when they found out they were going to captain Real Madrid together and summarily decided to get very, very drunk. They’d been sprawled out on the patio at Iker’s, before it was filled with Legos and toy cars and pool toys, sipping half-warm Mahous. Sergio had been trying in vain to pick up the last tuna roll with his chopsticks before just grabbing it with his fingers, Iker laughing at him.

Iker had asked him: “who would’ve thought we’d end up here?”

Sergio had laughed, sobered up, shrugged. “Everyone knew you’d be captain one day.”

Iker was looking at him coolly. “What, and you’re just riding my coattails?”  
  
Sergio smirked. “Why’d you think I sucked you off that first time? I know a good thing when I see it.”

“Oh my God,” Iker said, covering his face with his hands “I’ve been trying to forget that for years.”

“Dude,” Sergio said, “it was a great blowjob.”

“Stop congratulating yourself.”

Sergio grinned lopsidely at him. “And there’ll be another one if you play your cards right tonight.”

Iker gave him a skeptical look.

“Okay, okay, probably even if you just lie there on your smug little pool lounger.”

“It’s a chaise longue.”

“You’re a chaise longue,” Sergio muttered. Iker gave Sergio a slow clap. Sergio swung up and out of his chaise whatever and plonked himself down in Iker’s lap. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

They made out. It was what they did. When they were finished, Iker took a swig of his beer.

Sergio, who didn’t know when to quit (still doesn’t), said, “Did you imagine when you first met me that I’d be down on my knees for you one day?”

“What, a year before in 2005? You would’ve blown anything with a willing dick when you were that age.” Iker huffed a laugh.

Sergio stared at him.

“What? It’s true.”

“No,” Sergio said slowly, “in 2003.”

Iker stared at him. “What?”

“I told you how great I thought you were after you lost a match at Sevilla. I was practically drooling.”

“Sounds like you. Even at seventeen, trying for a date. Did you even play that day?”

Sergio shrugged. “No.”

Sevilla’d had a home match against Real Madrid that fall. Sergio hadn’t gotten called up to the first team (had never been called up back then), but he had been able to watch. Sevilla had crushed them four to one, and Guti had gotten sent off in the eighty-third minute, and Sergio remembered feeling that thrill of the unexpected win. He’d bumped into Iker on his way out. He’d said, “Hi,” and, “I watched you play in the World Cup last year.”

Iker had winced at that last, said something about not being good enough to save those penalties (or keep a clean sheat against Sevilla of all clubs), and thanked him and gone on his way. Sergio had felt like shit.

Back in 2010, Iker was laughing at him.

Sergio said, “Don’t worry. You’ve already burned through all that respect.”

Iker fluffed Sergio’s hair. “Promise?”

Sergio sighed. “Promise.” He pecked Iker on the lips. Iker reciprocated. Sergio went for another, held him in place, and saw to it that they kissed properly, slow and ostentatious.

“Is it too much to hope you’ll behave now that you’re in a position of authority?”

“Oh, definitely,” Sergio said. “I might get worse.” He added, “Hey, you should fuck me while you wear the armband.”

Iker spat out his mouthful of beer onto Sergio’s shirt and swore vociferously and at great length into the night.

Sergio said, “Glad that’s settled,” and shimmied down Iker’s lap.

Now, sometimes, when he wears the armband, when transfer season rolls around, when he watches the younger players shove at each other on the pitch, he thinks about the meetings he will never remember. They don’t matter, though. There is only one Iker for him.


	2. Pepmou, G, after Europa League victory ("Lonely as a clud [or whatever]")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161336250243/yaaaas-okay-carraville-at-the-sky-sports-end-of).

If this were any decent country, there would at least be a pool in the backyard for Pep to lurk near. As it is, it’s England (it’s bloody Manchester), so there’s some very sad shrubbery and a general sense of ennui. Pep brought a very nice coat, though, so at least he looks both warm and dramatic. (In reality, he is faintly damp and chilly. Because it’s England. Even England in the summer is fucking bullshit.)

Mourinho putters out on the deck behind him and barks out, “Tami said you were out here.”

Pep turns on his heel and levels a glare at him. “José.”

“Josep.”

They circle the pool that they are both heavily implying on the patio.

It’s Pep who breaks the silence. “How does it feel to win a second rate trophy with your second rate team?”

“At least my youngest isn’t the same age as my last European trophy.”

“Oh, even Rafa can lead a team to victory in the Europa League.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to take another year off to rest?”

“Remind me how your last tenure at Chelsea went?”

“I think we should fuck in the guest room,” Mou says. “My back isn’t up for the tile.”

“What, you think you’re just going to relax through this?”

“Some of us,” Mou says, “are celebrating our triumphs. Besides, my knees can’t take it either.”

“Ugh, fine, let’s go celebrate in the fucking guest room.”

“No,” Mou says, drunkenly shoving a finger up into Pep’s face, “no, I am celebrating, and you are— are servicing my celebration.”

“Fine,” Pep grits out.

Mou looks confused by this sudden conciliation, nods sharply, and shoves Pep a little too roughly toward the French doors leading to the guest room. “I hate England,” he says in a confiding tone. “Can we go home?”

“No,” Pep says, “but I’ll eat you out if you don’t talk too much.”

Mou shrugs. “Deal.”


	3. Carraville, M, end of season party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161365307388/).

They’re drinking. Well, they’re usually drinking, but this time, it’s a proper party, not just the two of them playing their weird version of gay chicken at a pub after filming MNF. Gary is, you know, sort of sober-ish, but only if you were being generous. Jamie is a little less sober, enough to pretend he can’t be held accountable, but also the right amount that he can convince Gary that making out in a cupboard is a good idea, which he promptly does.

“We’re in a broom cupboard,” Gary splutters.

Jamie rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to suck you off in the middle of the party.”

“Carra, this isn’t even our cupboard,” Gary says. “You can't—” Jamie undoes his fly. “—just suck me off—” Jamie whips out Gary’s dick, which is mostly hard and very cooperative once Jamie gets his hand on it. “—in some random cupboard.”

Jamie says, “Yeah, I can,” and sinks onto his knees and licks the tip. Gary’s dick tastes like skin, musky, slightly sour, a little like soap. It’s basically like all the other dicks he’s sucked in his life, which isn’t a whole lot (mostly because Stevie is a coward), but enough to know. He might think he was doing a bad job if Gary weren’t halfheartedly trying to resist fucking his mouth. It’s not that Jamie’s normally into that (okay, maybe a little), but come on, Gary. Jamie doesn’t spend half his time antagonizing the man so that he can not choke on Gary’s goddamn dick whenever he feels like it.

Jamie tells Gary that because he figures that’s what Gary probably needs to hear to get this going. Gary makes a noise like a dying seal and claws at his face. “Right,” Jamie says, “sure, we can have the gay panic later, but can you fuck my face while you’re at it?”

Gary gives him a gimlet eye.

“Close your eyes and remember I’m a Scouser.”

Gary raises his eyebrows higher.

“Okay, imagine I’m Stevie and you’ve just lost a—”

“Do not,” Gary says, “mention Steven Gerrard while we’re getting off together.”

Jamie shrugs noncomittally. “I don’t see you going limp.”

“Carra.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t mention him.”

Jamie goes to get back to business when Gary cuts in: “Look, at least shove my trousers down, or you’ll get chafed by the zip.”

Jamie stares up at him.

Gary sighs, much put upon. “It will show.”

Jamie shrugs. “I’ll tell them I cut myself shaving.”

“Ugh.” Gary shoves his jeans down to the top of his thighs and adjusts his pants to ride beneath his arse. “Get on with it.”

Jamie purses his lips. “Ungrateful sod.” But he goes for it anyway. It’s not like he’s going to be put off by Gary’s rotten personality at this point. He sticks with licking at first, pretending to be tentative, sucking gently on the head. Gary jostles him with one knee, impatient and also likely concerned that their absence won’t go unnoticed for much longer. Jamie picks up Gary’s hand, resting on his shoulder, and shifts it the few key inches to the back of his head. Gary resists, trying to pull his hand away, but Jamie holds it there, only lets go when Gary moves to cup the base of his skull, thumb and forefinger digging into the nape of Jamie’s neck. “Mmph.”

“Yeah?”

Jamie gives him an incredulous look as answer, and Gary laughs. He goes slow at first, not completely taking over, but Jamie keeps up a steady stream of pleased noises, which convinces him quick enough. Jamie can’t deepthroat normally, can’t suppress his gag reflex on his own, but he can like this with Gary pushing past it, setting a pace just the right side of punishing. When he comes, though, it’s not down Jamie’s throat but in his mouth, so Jamie has to taste him.

He pulls off and spits into a mop bucket and then looks up at Gary, whose expression is unreadable. “Uh.” Jamie leans his head against Gary’s hip, his breaths sharp and gasping, buying time.

Gary strokes a thumb across Jamie’s cheek. “Come here.” He tugs on Jamie’s hair and whines his name, and Jamie stands, half unwilling.

“Hey.”

Gary cracks up. “Yes, hello.” He goes to kiss Jamie, and Jamie tries to dodge him, but Gary manages to kiss him anyway. He leans back. “You taste awful.”

“Your fault.”

“Yeah,” Gary says, and tips Jamie’s chin down to slot their mouths together.


	4. Seriker, Isco/?, G, RM family matters ("Trouble in Paradise")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originals [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161366853553/seriker-as-parents-to-isco-vazques-etc-sergio-is) and [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161485363123/seriker-as-parents-to-isco-vazques-etc-sergio-is#notes). Situation debt to Yeats.

He’s all but asleep in front of the TV, some late night show playing on mute, when his iPad chimes loudly under his head. Iker jerks upright and slides to unlock the tablet. Which means that he accidentally accepts the call from Sergio without realizing there’s a call to accept. Sergio’s video is a blurry abstraction of dark and light shapes behind the silhouette of his head. His hair is cropped short. Iker can just see his beard.

“I hate your beard,” Iker says casually.

“Is that any way to say hello?” Sergio says in a prim voice.

“Hello Sergio,” Iker says sweetly before adding, “Why the fuck are you calling me at one in the morning?”

“Well, why are you answering? Hm?”

Iker rolls his eyes before realizing he hasn’t turned on his own video, so Sergio can’t tell. He does. “Answer the question, or I’ll hang up on you.”

Sergio sighs. “We have a situation.”

Iker raises his eyebrows. “That sounds like a Sergio problem.”

“It’s a team problem! You’re our—” Sergio stumbles for a moment. “—captain.” Iker grits his teeth and opens his mouth to point out the obvious. Sergio rushes on with: “Well, you’re my captain.”

Iker deflates. “You bastard.”

“Yeah,” Sergio says, “but look, Isco and Álvaro are beefing. I need advice. And backup. Some serious backup.”

“Isco and Álvaro?” Iker says. “Just let them work it out. They’re adults now. Let it go.”

Sergio groans and slumps back onto what Iker realizes is Sergio’s instantly recognizable living room sofa. “I tried. It’s just—” Sergio waves a hand around and joggles his tablet, making his video tremble as if in anticipation. “Álvaro won’t take any of my advice, which is perfect and on point, thank you very much, and Isco won’t hear him out anymore because he said, I don’t know, something earnest and tasteless, and I think Isco decided this was the last time.”

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Sergio adds mournfully, “Isco’s sleeping with someone else.”

“…I’ll be on the next flight out.” 

* * *

 

_Eight hours later…_

When Iker rolls into Valdebebas, he looks like death, his eyes red rimmed from too little sleep and the knowledge that he is supposed to be in Porto training, not solving Real Madrid’s latest psychosexual crisis. Sergio probably should’ve thought to pick him up at the airport, but well, too late for that. “Iker!” Sergio shouts, getting a running start and jumping him. Iker is Iker, so his only baggage is a backpack that won’t impede catching Sergio.

“I flew commercial, you fucker,” Iker grumbles, hands coming up to support Sergio. “I drank airport coffee, and I didn’t get to say goodbye to my kids before I left, so this better be good.”

Sergio mmphs happily, nuzzling his ear.

“If this is a booty call, you dick, I swear to God—” Iker says. “Oh, get down.”

Sergio is going to say no, but from behind him, Zizou’s low morning grouchy voice barks out: “What the hell?”

Sergio gracelessly climbs down, smoothing his hair, which is still gelled perfectly in place. “I called in the cavalry.”

“Oh,” Zizou says, “is this about the Isco thing?” Sergio nods curtly. Zizou pats him on the shoulder. “Not a bad idea. Well, get to it. If you stay too long, Casillas, I’ll make you train with us. —Good to see you again.” And Zizou disappears off into the bowels of la Ciudad.  
  
“So,” Iker says, suddenly suspicious, “you let it get so bad that Zizou knows?”

Sergio grimaces. “Look, you might want to sit down.”

“Oh, no,” Iker says. “Sergio, no. He didn’t.”

Sergio opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “In Isco’s defense, last fall, none of us thought Zizou would ever be head manager?”

And Iker says, “Sweet mother of God,” and slumps against the wall. “I’m gonna need another coffee.”


	5. Criska, G, Ricky gets Pinterest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161597608913/).

The front drive is filled with tarps and sanders and furniture and one Ricky, armed with a can of spray paint. When he spots Cris glaring at him from the front porch, he pushes his enormous goggles off his eyes and pulls down the complex breathing apparatus, so his hair sticks up and he looks like he just escaped from a scuba dive miraculously dry.

“Hey!” Ricky yells cheerfully. “What’s up?”

Cris gestures expansively at the disaster on the drive. “What,” Cris says, “is this?”

“I’m painting furniture,” Ricky says. “I went to a secondhand store and bought some pieces I thought might be fun to refurbish.”

Cris stares at him, at the disaster in front of his house, at the spray paint that could drift at any moment onto his cars like an insidious cloud. “We have furniture.”

Ricky nods happily. “Yes, but not in these colors.”

“You could’ve bought them in these colors,” Cris says. “Or had someone custom build something. Where are they going to go?”

Ricky purses his lips. “The guest room?”

“Which we furnished completely eleven months ago when we bought the house.”

Ricky sighs pointedly. “That’s not the point.”

—

The kitchen looks like a hurricane hit it, or at the very least, an army of toddlers. Ricky is in the middle of it, wearing an apron that Cris’s brother in law gifted him as a joke when he moved to Madrid. One forearm is splashed with flour. “I’m baking home made crackers.”

Cris putters over, glances at the baking tray filled with sad squarish items, and beholds the mountain of their burned brethren. “Did the car break down?”

“No,” Ricky says, puzzled.

“You could have bought–”

“They’re gluten free,” Ricky hisses as if that’s any excuse.

Cris grabs one burned cracker corpse and sticks it in his mouth. “Full roasty flavor with, hm, notes of ash.” Ricky smacks his ass and orders him out of the kitchen.

—

He finds Ricky and Junior together in front of a football highlights show, tangled up in yarn. Cris sits down on the recliner. He gives them both a look. Junior says darkly, “We’re saving the penguins.”

“What?”

“There was an oil spill,” Ricky explains. “They can’t keep warm with the oil on their feathers, so they need sweaters.”

“He found a knitting pattern,” Junior adds.

“You can’t knit,” Cris says as he watches a Chelsea defender aggressively foul a United player and get away with it.

“I’m learning.”

“What’s Junior doing?”

“Helping me wind the yarn.”

Cris goes over and lifts the taut yarn off his son’s hands. “You know what the penguins really need?”

“What?” Ricky asks.

“A couple million euro,” Cris says.

Ricky throws up his hands in disgust. “You can’t just throw money at all your problems.”

“No,” Cris says, “but I bet I have enough to pay Pinterest to block our IP address.”


	6. Seriker, G, Spotify ads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161793193073/).

Iker clicks through. It’s a video about men’s razors. Iker watches it for a few seconds, which is already a few seconds too long (come on come on come on), before turning back to Sergio and saying, “Now, where were we?”

Sergio stares at him. “Uh.” He gestures downwards at his erection. “You, me, handjob?”

Iker raises an eyebrow. “Yes, I recall.”

“Then, don’t ask.”

“It was rhetorical!”

“You decided to watch a thirty-second ad during sex, and you expect me to think you understand subtlety?”

“The real question,” Iker says, “is why you don’t have Spotify Premium already.”


	7. Cris/Phil Neville, T, words of wisdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/162153277393/).

SOMEWHERE IN GREATER MANCHESTER IN THE MID TO LATE NAUGHTS

“Look,” Phil says, “it’s not the worst idea I’ve heard this week.”

Ronny wrinkles his nose, which means one of two things: that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, or he can’t remember a word in English. “So you think I should do it?”

Phil raises an eyebrow. “Uh, I’m not saying that, mate.” He takes one look at Ronny’s sour face and chugs half his pint. “Test the waters, you know? Don’t, like, go round telling everyone or anything. But you know. Feel it out.”

“Feel it out,” Ronny says in the blank, hollow voice he reserves for when he both understands and hates your use of an English idiom. “What am I supposed to do, tell a couple teammates that I like to suck cock and see if they call me a—”

“Uh, no,” Phil says sharply, “I did not mean tell them that you like to suck cock. That's— No, that’s the opposite of— Okay, that is actually the worst idea I have heard this week, and Gaz was telling me he thinks he should go into TV.”

“What’s he going to do on TV?”

“Dunno.”

“No one wants to see that face on TV,” Ronny says. “Maybe commentating, though.”

“Mum always said I got the looks in the family,” Phil says. Ronny shoots him a skeptical look. “Ah, fuck off. We can’t all be chiseled footballing gods.”

Ronny beams at him. “You’re drunk.”

“No! Besides, what d'you know about being drunk?” Phil pokes Ronny in the chest. “And I’m straight, but I’m not blind.”

“Aw,” Ronny says, ruffling Phil’s hair. “For that, you can be first in line to get your dick sucked.”

Phil splutters. “Oye. At least buy me a drink first.” Ronny, to his credit, buys the next round.


	8. Marceluka, G, new season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/162171255513/for-the-prompts-ask-marcelo-luka-discuss-what).

Luka tidies. It’s the first match of the season at home, their first night at Valdebebas, so he doesn’t really need to, but he does it anyway. Checks to make sure everything is in its proper place. Puts Ivano’s drawing of them on the pitch, ‘GOOD LUCK DADDY’ scrawled above them, where he’ll see it when he wakes up. He goes to double-check his bag, and Marcelo says, “You’ve already done that one.”

“I know,” Luka says.

“So you don’t need to do it again.” Marcelo is sitting on Luka’s bed, rumpling the covers and squashing his pillows and drinking a beer that he’s almost certainly smuggled in.

“Drinking the night before a match? Aren’t you supposed to be our vice captain now?”

Marcelo grins. “Yeah, but Sergio’s vice captain.”

Luka can’t actually argue with that.

“Speaking of Sergio—”

“I don’t think it’s a problem anymore,” Luka says curtly, “given what’s happened.”

Marcelo raises his eyebrows. “Okay.”

Luka purses his lips. “It’s not that I don't— Is that really the first thing they need to hear?”

“What, you think Sergio can’t give a good welcome-to-the-family speech?” Marcelo takes a long drag of his beer. Luka watches the way his throat moves when he swallows.

“So we’re going to throw them to the wolves.”

“The balcony wolves are gone,” Marcelo says. “Everything else…”

“Sure,” Luka says, flopping down next to him on the bed, “but I’m not helping you clean up after Cris this time.”

Marcelo shoots Luka a betrayed look and doesn’t let him steal his beer. “You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me,” Luka says, and grabs the beer on his second try.

Marcelo sighs. “Okay, okay, so one: please don’t have sex with Cristiano Ronaldo.”

“Strong start. Two: do not have sex on the balconies during concentration. We can all hear you, and we are not amused.”

“Three: don’t stand on the balconies too long if you don’t want to hear Sergio Ramos fucking.”

Luka gives him a look.

Marcelo shrugs. “What! It’s tradition.”

“You don’t want to help. You just want to watch them squirm.”

“Four: Luka has no sense of humor,” Marcelo says.

Luka dodges Marcelo’s attempt to regain the beer. “Five: Luka will lock you out on the balcony. Do not test him.” He finishes the beer.

“Rude.” Marcelo flicks him on the ear.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Luka says. “Six: music choices are captains’ privilege.”

Marcelo brightens. “That’s a good one.”

“I thought you’d like it.”


	9. Seriker, T, catching feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161367400603/).

Midnight in the pied à terre of good and evil. Iker can hear the television set in the apartment next door, overlaid with Sergio’s snores. His head is cushioned on Iker’s shoulder, and he has one arm crumpled up against Iker’s side. Every single one of Sergio’s stupid pointy joints is poking into Iker. He could be at home sleeping by himself. Instead, he’s in Sergio’s dingy fucking apartment. Literally: it’s an efficiency apartment near the training ground that Sergio bought just for fucking (“it’s an investment;” oh, please) because he and Iker can’t be trusted to make it to a secure location if it’s going to take more than five minutes to get there.

Which is to say that David caught them one time getting off in the back of Iker’s car, and the lecture that he’d given Iker in private afterward had been mortifying enough to make Iker think twice about doing anything that would make David talk to him about public relations or personal responsibility or new relationships or Sergio’s dick ever again. At the end of it, David had winked at him in a way that was meant to be conspiratorial but just came off as paternal.

Suffice to say, it was not their least awkward conversation ever.

Iker brushes Sergio’s long hair out of his face and back onto the pillow, and Sergio stirs slightly in his sleep, shifting closer, nuzzling his nose into Iker’s shoulder. He’s so warm that Iker tries to shove the duvet off them. Iker wonders if he can sneak out without waking him, and then he imagines Sergio’s face upon waking in the morning, the way he looks so impossibly young as he’s blinking sleep out of his eyes, and Iker’s chest goes tight. He looks up at the ceiling and realizes: oh shit.


	10. Criska, G, engagement ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original [here](http://aphilologicalbatman.tumblr.com/post/161370394753/write-criska-wedding-ring-shopping-fic).

All in all, the engagement ring is only slightly more romantic than the proposal, which goes like this: Junior tells Ricky that Cris and Dolores went to a jewelry store while he and Cris were in Madeira, and Ricky panics that Cris will beat him to it, so when Cris comes home, still sweaty from training, Ricky goes down on one knee (the good one; he has that much forethought) in the foyer and asks Cristiano Ronaldo if he’ll marry him with a candy ring pop.

Cris says yes.

Then, Cris makes Ricky take that processed sugar product out of his house before they make out on the couch. For that reason, there isn’t exactly an engagement ring per se, and it isn’t like Cris can wear one on the pitch, but Ricky knows it’s something Cris would want. And he’s thinking about what to buy, he really is, when he gets a call from Cartier to let him know that the ring he ordered is ready.

It turns out to be an ethically-sourced diamond solitaire set in white gold that costs far more than three months of what his pay had been in his last season at MLS. He brings it home and then doesn’t let on to Cris until after dinner, just to watch Cris squirm and try to focus on Junior’s stories from school while they eat Ricky’s attempt at Dolores’s bacalhau à bras. Junior drifts into the living room to play something with a lot of blams and explosions, and Ricky lures Cris out onto the patio by saying that they need to let the dogs out.

Ricky is about to go on one knee again, even though his knee has been sore all day, when Cris catches his arm. “Don’t. This is fine.” He holds out his hand, and Ricky takes it and slides the ring onto the proper finger. Even in the dying light, it glimmers.

“You know,” Ricky says, “if you needed an excuse to buy yourself bling, there are easier ways than this.”

Cris shrugs. “Seemed as good as any.”


End file.
